Another Basic Equation

July 23, 2012

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For engineers, the breakdown of life can be seen in equations. While some may be very complicated, like how a wife’s mind works, many are simple and constitute the basic building blocks of our world.

For example:

F = ma

where,

F = force

m = mass

a = acceleration

It really is as simple as V = IR. For this equation, F = ma, motion, forces, and the mass of the object are described in a beautifully simple equation that everyone, not just engineers, can appreciate.

How much speed can you get a car going by pushing it? F = ma

Would it help if the car was lighter (less mass)? F = ma

Would more people pushing make it easier? F = ma

For non-engineers, next time you are in a group of friends and, say, someone suggests that you figure out a way to move the trajectory of an asteroid heading straight toward earth, simply bring up this equation, F = ma, and you will be the person who saves earth. Finding a way to apply the force to the asteroid and all the little details that go along with the rest of the problem, those can be solved by others. You are the one who got it going, kick-starting the whole saving-the-world initiative by your understanding of force, mass, and acceleration, and their relationship to one another. You will be a hero.

Torkus – Medieval Engineer

July 16, 2012

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A month or two ago, we focused on Tork, prehistoric engineer. This week, we will look in on descendant, Torkus, who lived around the turn of the first millennium.

Before the plague devastated Europe, there were still a lot of diseases, generally called by the catch-all phrase of pestilence. Torkus, being an engineer and therefore wanting to served society, decided to take on this problem. He derived a formula for the probability that someone would get sick with pestilence.

p = d * s * t

Where,

p = the probability of getting sick with pestilence

d = the distance from a sick person

s = severity of that person’s sickness

t = time of being in the sick person’s presence

Torkus theorized that there was some mechanism, an invisible wave, or a force of some sort that made all this make sense, and since these seem to be understandable (at least to a 1000 AD engineer), then an algorithm or equation would be a simple way to explain this and serve society by improving our quality of life.

Torkus was wrong. Pestilence was caused by germs, sometimes from eating bad food, sometimes from drinking tainted water, sometimes by being bitten by rats.  Life in 1000 AD was not always that fun.

But, here is what is important to remember. Even though Torkus was wrong, and many of his friends and family still died from pestilence, he was thinking like an engineer. Was it his fault the doctors and biologists were behind in their understanding of their fields. No. Torkus was still doing what engineers have done for over a thousand years since – understanding the world through equations and serving society by solving, or at least trying to solve, the problems we all face.

I’m just glad the pestilence thing is understood better now.

The Basics

July 9, 2012

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When a sports team starts to lose, the coach typically makes a statement that the team is going back to the basics, that they will emphasize the fundamentals.

Engineers are way ahead of them, because engineers are all about the basics. As a service provided by engineeringdaze.com, we want to provide for all the non-engineers out there some of the basics, so that you can talk to the engineer in your life. First up, the basic, most fundamental equation for electricity:

V = IR

where,

V = Voltage

I = Amperage

R = Resistance

What simplicity. Three variables, one equation. No fractions (unless one want to solve for I or R), and no exponents. And it is as solid a foundation as they come. I actually had an electrical engineering professor say that if we had no idea how to solve a problem on a test, at least put down this equation, and he would give you partial credit.

V = IR is also useful. On a recent trip, my family and I were driving along a very long, relatively straight interstate and were paralleled by some high voltage lines. My daughter who just got through 8th grade started explaining how the electricity in our homes had to go through transformers to step down the voltage and (as my friend Tom would hear the next part) “Blah, blah, blah”. I would prefer it to say, “Yada, yada, yada.”

She, who wants to enter some strange, artsy profession like choreography, could actually relate to an engineer by almost referencing this basic equation.

So, you see, V = IR is a wonderful equation to use when communicating with engineers.

Viewing Fireworks – Made Better by Engineering

June 25, 2012

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Of course, engineers can enjoy fireworks as well as anyone. It is fireworks season and since my town had its fireworks last night, I will update you on how an engineer can loosen up, relax, and have fun with the fireworks, making them more enjoyable for everyone.

Fireworks are set off and work through a series of flames, projectile motions, and explosions. All of these are of interest to the engineer. But it is likely that most engineers will not be part of the development of the fireworks, nor the setting off of the fireworks, but instead, he will sit there with friends or family and watch them. That does not mean the engineer has to sit idle. He can develop a rating system that will score each individual firework, until, of course, the finale. Then they go too quickly.

But during the show, the engineer can fill out a spreadsheet, scoring each firework on the following:

height; width; unique shapes; number of colors; number of embedded fireworks; volume of the “Ooh”‘s and “Aah”‘s invoked; uniqueness factor

Each of these can be scored – say, on a scale of 1-10 for all but number of colors and embedded fireworks – for each firework and an equation can be written into the spreadsheet to derive at a final score for the fireworks.

The spreadsheet will look like a normal spreadsheet, with the engineer filling in the left seven columns, and the equation, with weighting factors, calculating the right-most column – the overall score. The equation can go something like this:

FS = .1xh + .2xw + .1xs + .35xc + .4xe + .15xa + .15xu

With FS being the Fireworks Score, I am sure you can discern what the variables are for since they follow the factors listed above. The engineer can then make this even more fun, or possibly simply more intriguing, by tweaking the values of the weights, shown by the constants, associated with each factor. And, of course, have everyone join in.

Fireworks – yet another experience that the engineer can make more fun with the appropriate approach.

Thinking Like an Engineer

June 18, 2012

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There are times that I realize that I not only am an engineer, but I think like one. Case in point: a while ago I lost a few items, all on the same weekend. These were not any of the biggies like a wedding ring or one of our children, but they were things that were inconvenient not to have, used frequently, and cost something to replace. What the items were is not important, so much as the way my mind tried to work the problem. Which should I spend the most effort looking for? Which is of most “value” to me?

While many people think somewhat like this, the engineer will develop a table, or spreadsheet to calculate which item is of the highest value and which he should look for first. I know I did.

The table looked something like the following:

Item

Frequency of Use

Cost to Replace

Likelihood of Finding with Same Effort

Ordinal “Value”

1

2

3

All of the first three columns after the Item column were given a rank of 1 to 10 for each of the items. Then the final column was simply the addition of the three previous values. I could have made it the average, so that the scale was still a 1 to 10 scale. Instead, I played it crazy and the Ordinal “Value” ended up being a 1 to 30 scale. (I can be quite crazy at times.) I also considered but did not pursue the weighting of one factor over another, either by making the scale larger or smaller for a factor (column) or by creating an equation for the Ordinal “Value” that weighted the other three scored values.

Again, these weren’t highly important or expensive items. I think the one that ended with the greatest Ordinal “Value” was my cell phone car charger, being used frequently but not daily, some cost to replace, but more likely to find since it was probably in one of the cars, or not. At any rate, I spent my time looking first for the car charger.

I may have been able to find all three items in the time it took me to derive their Value, but that is not the point, and if you went there before you read this sentence, well, you are likely not an engineer.

Center for Extrapolated Data

June 11, 2012

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Some people reading these pages have asked about the Center for Extrapolated Data, which is referenced in a number of the posts. What is it? How does it work? Where do they get their data?

The short answer is – it’s magic. No, no, no. This is an engineering blog. There is a rational explanation for almost everything, something we can measure, calculate, or derive. But, for many of the situations that appears on these pages, data simply doesn’t exist – yet. However, we really know that it is true. So, we take data we have, and extrapolate it.

Let’s look at an example. We can state that the Center for Extrapolated Data has determined that an engineer has a 0.0032% chance of volunteering to make a public presentation when asked for volunteers at work, and of the extremely small number that do volunteer, about 38% of those volunteered only because they were scratching their head at the wrong time, and 61% volunteered because they were writing an equation to calculate the odds of being chosen to make the presentation, only to volunteer because they weren’t paying attention completely and thought they were volunteering NOT to make the presentation.

It turns out that 1% of the 0.0032%, or 3.2 out of every 100,000 engineers actually would volunteer to make a presentation.

How did we determine this number? We could lie and say that we surveyed a sizable number of engineers, or that we did detailed studies in this area. But that (the study, not the lie) takes time and money, something we try to minimize as engineers. Instead, we simply go by experience – what we’ve seen – and know that it will be backed up by what every engineer sees at work. Thus, about 3 out of every 100,000 engineers sounds just about right.

We add the .2 to make is seem more precise and engineering-ish.

The Center for Extrapolated Data is explained.

Polystats for Presentations

June 4, 2012

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Statistics from the Center for Extrapolated Data show the following:

        82% of engineers have put over

                  51% of their audience to sleep in

                            37% of their presentations

On the bright side, rest is a commodity of which all of us in society need more. In a way, engineers are doing the world yet another service.

How Long Are We Staying at the Party?

May 28, 2012

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Many family members of engineers will understand that the engineer typically has a different view of how long the couple or family should stay at a party. Most family members think that if the invitation states 6 – 11, then the family should maybe roll out of there at 10:30 or 10:45, or, if they are having a fun time, stay til 11:00, or even later.

The engineer, however, has an equation that differs from the rest of the family’s internal departure clocks.

Tp = 0.5 hrs/(N*R*S)

Where:

Tp = the time in hours to stay at the party

N = the number of people at the party

R = the percent of relatives at the party

S = the percent of strangers at the party

You may notice that the base time is a half hour. Then, the more people, the higher the percent of relatives and strangers, the shorter the time. It has been known that some engineers who are dragged to a party of, say, a wife’s coworkers, have been ready to leave within 1.8 seconds of arriving. It is in situations like this that the engineer wishes that the time travel in all those sci-fi movies and shows was at his disposal. Darn the one-dimensional, linear dimension of time!

A Potential Engineer’s View of Laundry

May 14, 2012

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Engineers are engineers from a very early age. One non-engineer wife of an engineer put it this way. “He was an engineer long before he got the degree.”  Very few engineers weren’t “engineers” when they were pre-teens. And some who don’t end up being engineers may show engineering tendencies and worry his or her parents.

A number of years ago, my daughter gave me quite a scare. I was commenting, possibly complaining, about all the laundry that builds up so quickly in our home. My 9-year-old daughter stopped me and did a very engineering analysis of the situation by running the numbers. She explained that with five people, each wearing a shirt, pants, underwear, and socks for each day of the week (with the possible exception of her older brother), that would mean:

5 x (1+1+1+2) x 7 = 175 articles of clothes per week

I stopped her before she went through the explanation of towels, sheets and kitchen articles that should be estimated and added to this total, not to mention days when more than one shirt or one pair of socks are worn. I definitely stopped her before she got to translating this number to volume.

Is engineering in her future? At this point, it doesn’t look like it, but she gave me a huge cause for concern for a while.

Brain Analysis

May 7, 2012

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For a person who just happens to fall for an engineer, with all that love stuff involved, it is helpful to realize the following graph that depicts where on the left-brained/right-brained continuum engineers tend to fall.

Engineer                                      left     center     right

←—————————————————————————→

One can see that the engineer would be considered left-brained he was more emotional. Put another way, Spock was too emotional to be an engineer.

If a person has hung around an engineer long, this is likely a known fact. However, it is always good to recall the truism for engineers: Engineers don’t feel, they think.

So, remember the continuum. This will help a great deal when interactions are necessary or desired.

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